A recent statement was circulated by a group identifying itself as the “Union of Cultural Workers in Jordan,” calling for the “boycott of mmag,” and accusing cultural workers, artistic collectives, and artists collaborating with mmag of complicity, silence, and normalization with the Zionist entity, based on the nature of the institution’s funding. This campaign began several months ago, when a group, still publicly unwilling to reveal its identity, sent an email to the mmag team and its community, accusing mmag’s cultural discourse of “monopolizing narratives of resistance.” The group claimed that mmag’s public programming and collaborations with artists from the Arab region are nothing but a façade to whitewash the commercial activities of our funders, the Abu Ghazaleh family. The email called on our public to enact a cultural boycott and demanded that mmag’s team either reject all ties with the funding family or resign from their positions. We do not, and will not, undermine the right of any group to express its position or act in accordance with its own principles. However, we believe it is our responsibility to respond to this campaign in a manner that reflects our accountability to our public, to the cultural scene in Amman, and to the integrity of truth against reductive claims. It is publicly known and documented that mmag was established in 2017 through donations from the Abu Ghazaleh family and is sustained through this operational funding, along with income generated by space rentals, workshops, conferences, and artistic residencies. These income streams allow the program to maintain independence from any funder-imposed agendas. Since mmag’s inception, the funders have committed to a clear relationship without interference in the institution’s programming or its public positioning. All contributions to mmag are from the family’s private funds. mmag is not the cultural arm nor a social responsibility extension of any business or investment affiliated with the funders, it is a nonprofit cultural institution with a programming team, overseen by a board of directors. We thus categorically reject any attempt to associate mmag, as a vital cultural actor in Amman and the wider Arab region, with any local or international commercial entity linked to the family, including ties to Del Monte Fresh, a company publicly listed on the NYSE. That said, we are conscious of our responsibilities, and we do not reject the right to scrutiny and critical engagement. In fact, grounded in our belief that collective work is the only path to meaningful action, we’ve actively engaged in honest, in-depth dialogues on various levels, with different stakeholders, around the nature of the family’s business practices and the actual relationship between those practices and mmag’s public positioning, artistic programming, and institutional discourse. We are acutely aware that cultural funding in the region is structurally fraught, requiring collective and sincere effort to build pathways toward shared liberation. The dominant funding frameworks shaping the cultural scene in recent decades, particularly in the absence of state funding for arts and culture, have left artists and cultural spaces facing difficult choices: either seek Western funding tied to cultural diplomacy, which imposes languages, frameworks of evaluation, and fundable themes, often originating from governments and organizations complicit in or silent about colonial violence (first and foremost, the Israeli occupation), or seek private local capital, which often carries its own complications rooted in the nature of capital itself - complications that must be acknowledged, worked through, and continuously interrogated. Like many cultural workers and artists across the region, we dream of independent economic models. However, the reality of the Jordanian and wider Arab cultural infrastructure necessitates our orientation towards local private funding. This positions us in a space of continuous negotiation without absolving any actor, while striving to protect cultural agency and reduce externally imposed constraints on our discourse. At the heart of mmag’s work today is its residency program and open workspaces. These spaces are available for artists to work free from constraints; spaces of production unbound by imposed narratives or agendas. These residencies are not conditional, not to political authorities, nor to funders, nor to ready-made narratives. They are dedicated to supporting artistic and intellectual work within its local context, with deep sensitivity to our just causes; foremost among them, the Palestinian cause. mmag’s position was always firm and clear: we reject all forms of normalization with the occupation. Our commitment to cultural boycott is not a slogan, it is an institutional practice. We do not partner with complicit institutions, nor do we work with artists who lack a clear position on the Israeli occupation and on all just liberation struggles. Yet turning the boycott into a tool for internal exclusion and erasure drags the artistic and cultural scene into zero-sum conflicts, redirecting the energy of boycott away from its original aim of confronting the colonial structure, and instead toward fracturing our cultural fabric. Dissent is legitimate. But defamation, stigmatization, and the cutting off of artistic spaces are not acts of liberation. They derail collective processes built over years of labor. We believe that the weakening or collapse of such spaces under the weight of such accusations would be a collective loss, especially for those seeking independent cultural ground in Jordan and the region. These spaces matter in the support of our causes. We are not asking for blind trust, nor for a “certificate of credibility” based on statements alone. That is why we have taken public responsibility, initiating conversations with the funders, with cultural boycott activist institutions in Jordan and Palestine, as well as with artists, practitioners, and institutions across Jordan and the Arab region. In closing, we insist on the truth: we do receive local operational funding. There is space for open discussion and accountability. Our programs are independent. We reject normalization. We resist the use of boycott as a tool for internal dismantling. We choose review, transparency, and collective work over exclusion and vilification. That is what this city, its artists, and its public deserve: free spaces not more walls. the mmag team
mmag’s main objective is to support the ecosystem of artists in Jordan and the region. The foundation runs a wide-ranging set of programs designed to support contemporary artistic practice, nurture interdisciplinary exploration, and engage local and international communities. These programs — residencies, workshops, exhibitions, public events, and more — support artists, thinkers, and communities in pushing the boundaries of art and knowledge-making. At the core of these programs, and conceived as responsive frameworks, both our short- and long-term residencies are attuned to the evolving trajectories of artistic practice. They offer time, space, and critical context for artists to engage in open-ended exploration—materially, conceptually, and theoretically.
mmag was founded through a major contribution from the Abu Ghazaleh private family funds. These funds provided both our physical site and operating budget and make possible the foundation’s growing presence. Today, as a non-profit cultural institution, mmag continues to sustain itself through a growing mix of additional support, generating income through renting out space, and providing residency accommodations. At present, mmag is working towards securing more sources of funding from regional cultural organizations, aligned foundations and individual Arab donors who believe in the urgency and value of what we do, and are fully in line with our mission, values, and ethical commitments. These additional funds will be directed specifically to cover programming expenses. We are committed to building a resilient funding model—one that respects artistic freedom, protects institutional independence, and enables long-term sustainability without compromising our principles. mmag is legally registered with the Jordanian Ministry of Culture as a not-for-profit institution and is not the CSR arm of any of the Abu Ghazaleh family’s corporate holdings. It meets all financial reporting and governance standards, including annual audits. Its financial records are fully documented and publicly accessible.
Like all non-profits, we have a dedicated team who work together to design, realize, and run our programs, initiatives, and facilities. mmag also has a board of directors that is responsible for governance, oversight, etc..
As a cultural institution based in Amman, we hold a direct responsibility to act with integrity. Refusing normalization is one way we assert that responsibility—clearly, unapologetically, and across all aspects of our programming, partnerships, and institutional practice. We are against any collaboration with Israeli artists, institutions, or cultural entities, and we do not engage with individuals or organizations that do. We believe that cultural normalization with Israel is not neutral. It plays an active role in whitewashing occupation, apartheid, and colonial violence. We reject the logic that art and culture exist in a vacuum, divorced from material realities and political accountability. This is not an abstract or selectively applied policy—it is a fundamental ethical position rooted in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom, justice, and self-determination.
mmag fully supports the BDS movement. We view it as a legitimate and urgently necessary form of nonviolent resistance, rooted in international law and the long-standing tradition of cultural and academic boycott against apartheid regimes. We do not accept funding, support, or partnership from any organization or body identified by the BDS campaign as complicit in Israeli apartheid, occupation, or settler-colonial violence. These criteria are non-negotiable. They guide our decisions around grants, collaborations, programming, and institutional affiliations. In this effect, we ensure all our funders and collaborators also operate within the BDS rules and regulations. But our support for BDS goes beyond compliance—it reflects a deeper alignment with the values of dignity, justice, and collective liberation. We believe in the role of culture as a space of refusal, of reimagining, and of solidarity. We recognize that dismantling systems of domination includes rejecting the infrastructures that uphold them—whether financial, institutional, or cultural. BDS is one form of that rejection. We stand with it, and we stand with Palestine.
Our website and Instagram document the core of our work—past and present programs, residencies, collaborations, exhibitions, and the questions that drive them. You’ll find archives, references, statements, fragments of process, and traces of the conversations we’re part of. We invite you to follow them. A less literate, more literal approach to mmag would be on foot—past the library, through the courtyard, next to the studios, beyond the gallery, and into the work. Our spaces are extensions of our practice, shaped by the people who use them, and the things they are or might be used for. Our grounds are invitational: you are welcome to move through them, observe what is happening, and take the time to sit with the ongoing. Sometimes the best way to meet a thought is to walk into the room where it’s been pacing. Most importantly, whatever path you take, we invite you to engage critically. mmag is not a brand, a building, or a fixed identity—it is a cultural institution in active formation, shaped by its context and by those who challenge and contribute to it. Our programs are public, our spaces are porous, and our positions are neither eternal nor inert. If you have questions or responses—critical or otherwise—you can contact us directly here mail@mmagfoundation.org to start the conversation. We welcome scrutiny, disagreement, and dialogue. Cultural institutions should be accountable, and we are no exception. But above and beyond critique—or perhaps as its highest and most generative form—we welcome creative proposals: new programs, interventions, or contributions to existing ones. If you have something to offer that speaks to our context, challenges our assumptions, or expands our work, we are listening.